CLEVELAND, Ohio –
Reggie Jackson had a whole month named after him –- Mr. October.

So did Dave
Winfield, but "Mr. May," George Steinbrenner's derisive term for the former
Indian with the Yankees, lacks resonance in baseball.

Ted Williams only
got 1/154th of the
season named after him –- Teddy
Ballgame.

Johnny Manziel had
the whole world of Saturday afternoon and night named after him –- Johnny
Football. Even if the Texas
A&M quarterback's nickname was only a reference to the oblate spheroid
itself (and it was not), it's hyperbole and
respect, publicity and promise, risk,
reward and what-not else, all in a fascinating jumble.

If Manziel is
there as the fourth pick of Thursday's NFL Draft, I take him.

I'm not a real big
believer in the NFL's conventional wisdom. It's often nothing more than the security of group thinking. So worries about Manziel's mechanics don't bother
me that much.

His maturity off the field? A little more, but it's not a deal-breaker.

The NFL deep thinkers told us Carmen
Policy was a great hire as president of the reborn Browns. He was a fashionable, but empty, suit
who came up with one salary-cap trick in San Francisco.

They thought Mike
Holmgren, now dissing Manziel as "too playground" and "a
long-shot" to be a star, was a brilliant
quarterback guru. The QB savant signed Jake Delhomme, drafted Colt McCoy with
no complementary weapons and gave the
keys to the franchise to Brandon Weeden, who would've driven it into a ditch,
except he would've missed.

The difference
between playground and extending plays is not merely in the result. Some of that can be pure, dumb luck. The
difference is the willingness to tone the maverick, improvisational side down, in
the interest of reaching the goals Manziel
has for himself and his team.

Given how competitive as
he is, and even critics give him that, and how much as he loves the game despite the
rock star lifestyle, I give him the benefit of the doubt.

Critics say Johnny
F. gives up on plays and leaves the pocket too soon. Admirers say give him an "A" for astonishing, as he
makes something out of nothing.

Critics say J Foot won't last, just look at Robert Griffin
III. Admirers say he is almost as fast
as RGIII and has a lot more shake, bake and hard-to-equate shiftiness.

He is very strong for a quarterback, as
well as fast. He knocked a Duke middle linebacker right on his
mortarboard and tassel in Texas A&M's bowl game, when Young Mr. Ball led a rally from a 21-point halftime deficit.

Mobility is the
big new game-changer.
Griffin wasn't really contained until Washington coach Mike Shanahan
played him too long in a playoff game when he had little ability to evade
tacklers as the game wore on.

Colin Kaepernick
has been to one Super Bowl and to the brink of another one as a long-striding dual-purpose threat.

Russell Wilson won the last Super Bowl by
running around, doing such once forbidden things as sliding to the left or right to gain field
vision. His size is similar to Manziel.

Manziel had big,
rangy receivers at Texas A&M, which certainly fits the specifications
of 6-3, 225 Browns game-breaker Josh
Gordon. Critics say Manziel often just threw
it up for grabs and let them go and get it. That was a frequent Brett Favre play under the QB guru Holmgren.

The signature play Manziel made against Alabama ended with a tall receiver's catch in a crowd of defenders of a late heave down the middle. This often turns into the Oskie Play (the
defensive signal for an interception) in the NFL.

There will be some hard learning
experiences. How fast Manziel grows from the mistakes every rookie QB makes will determine how well he does.

Admirers say
Manziel has "it." Without getting into discussions of what makes up the
mystique of a winner, I say you quantify
"it" by conceding that the game is
played with more attention to college spread-formation principles than ever
before.

Mobility at quarterback is the parry to the thrust of more athletic pass
rushers. The
game is played with more emphasis on spacing than anything since the movie
"Gravity."

Take Johnny
Football and, not only will a huge jolt of genuine excitement flash through the city, but maybe he can also make the Browns fly.

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